The Disappearing
by Grav
Summary: He couldn’t help but wonder what questions would be asked, what would come to light if he were to disappear into the New York darkness tonight. UPDATE: Danny
1. Hypothetical Scenario

AN: The irony of this story is that when I wrote it, I could actually see the Nile from my balcony.

Originally, this was going in a completely different direction, but then inspiration struck in about the middle of the second sentence. I blame the food poisoning. Stupid lentils.

Disclaimer: You know, a funny thing happened on the way to the patent office...

Spoilers: Bait

Summary: Old habits die hard, and Samantha Spade found herself sitting in a taxi theorizing about what muddy stories the FBI would turn up if she were to vanish tonight.

**Hypothetical Scenario**

It was something of a fascination with her. More than a little morbid, this she would readily admit, but nothing detrimental to her health or her profession. She still didn't tell the psychiatrist about it though. There were some barriers of privacy she wouldn't cross, even for the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

Still, old habits die hard, and Samantha Spade found herself in the back of a taxi theorizing about what muddy stories the FBI would turn up if she were to vanish tonight.

The first person interviewed would be the taxi driver, because Vivian would tell them that she had left in a cab. The cab driver's English would not be good, and the first thing he would tell them was that he was legal. Then Danny would tell him that he didn't care, he just wanted to know about a fare the driver had picked up last night. Over coffee but still in an interrogation room, Danny would ask the driver if her remembered a blonde woman who had come from a bar late the previous night. The driver would remember her. They always did.

And then, he would drop the bombshell.

The pretty blonde had not been by herself. She'd been with a young, well dressed man. They had quibbled about directions and distance, but only one address had been given. Danny would recognize it immediately as hers, but would wait until the driver was gone to tell Vivian that she had been with Martin.

If Jack hadn't left, he might have been the one to interview Martin, and it all would have stopped right there. But Jack was gone and Danny was to attached and Vivian was new and bogged down in paper work. No, Van Buren would get wind of the whole thing and insist on bringing in an outsider to conduct the rest of the investigation. Jack would have protested. Vivian knew when to let the bureaucrats have their day.

So a stranger would come in, and since he or she was unfamiliar with her, he or she would request her profile. Given the recent additions, the psychiatrist would be questioned. This would be done in the doctor's office, and she would politely withhold information while subtly insinuating insight into Samantha's character. If the outside investigator was perceptive, he or she would figure out that she was an emotional gun-shot victim with relationship issues. If he or she was really good, they might even have an idea who.

Regardless, the next interview would be with Vivian. Vivian would tell him or her that she was a good agent, regardless of what her file or psychiatrist said. If asked flat out about Jack, Vivian would lie, because she knew when lying was the thing to do. After the interview, she would leave the office and call Jack. Just to be sure.

Danny might not be interviewed at all. Then again, as the only member of the team whose observations of the night would not be infused with alcohol, he might be. The outside investigator would ask about her behaviour that night; if it was her custom to leave with co-workers. Danny would answer honestly that he didn't know, but that the Samantha Spade he knew did not play that sort of game.

And finally, Martin would be called in. Usually, as the last person seen with the missing, Martin would have been interviewed first, but since this involved two federal agents. The outside investigator would be sure to have all of his or her ducks lined up before calling him in.

And what would Martin say?

Samantha paused in her musing to glace across at the man sitting beside her. He wasn't drunk, or at least she didn't think so, so his memories of this night would be relatively unobscured. But what would those memories be? Was he celebrating the promotion of a friend while mourning the loss of a mentor? Or was he celebrating the departure of the rival who stepped on him both professionally and personally and looking for forward to the opportunity the absence would present?

Martin had kept up a conversation throughout the ride. She had answered correctly and during the appropriate intervals. She was nothing if not a multi-tasker. He talked about Seattle and how much he wished he wasn't so awkward when it came to the job. She had never been to Seattle and she told him a couple of her more humiliating blunders during her first while at Missing Persons. They did not speak of Jack.

The cab stopped in front of Samantha's house. This would be the last time the drier saw her, disappearing into a building. From here on, the scenario belonged to Martin. The outside investigator would take his or her time working up to this point. He or she would reword questions, making sure that Martin was telling the absolute truth.

Samantha opened the door and slid out. She looked back at the cab. What would Martin say?

"Good night, Samantha." He said, and leaned over to pull the door shut.

**finis**

AN: A girl can dream, can't she?

And really, who among us hasn't done this while walking home alone in the dark and humming the theme song?

gravitynotincluded, August 24, 2004


	2. Explosion

AN: I've never tried Danny before. I'm oddly terrified.

_Red Pen/Blue Pen _is an amazing story belonging to the equally amazing mercury (aka merccy). I borrowed some ideas from it with her permission.

Spoilers: Clare de Lune, Risen, American Goddess

Summary: He couldn't help but wonder....

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**Explosion**

As Sam turned her back on him and walked away, the biting comment sank in. He stood in the middle of their 'office', staring listlessly at his desk and wondering if this was really who he had become. _"Where's your compassion?"_ she'd asked. He didn't know. And as he packed it in for the evening he couldn't help but wonder what questions would be asked, what would come to light if he were to disappear into the New York darkness tonight.

He would be missed officially at 9:00am when his co-workers would notice that his desk was unoccupied. They would call his house and leave a message. They would call his cell and get his voice mail. It would be at least 11:00am before Jack could cut through all of the red tape and dispatch some combination of Martin, Vivian and Samantha to his apartment. There, they would piece together his day of disappearance.

The first thing to have missed him would have been the blue pen. He'd bought that pen almost four years ago from a stationary shop down the street. It had come in a package of two. The other was red and he used it to cross off the days when he'd had a drink. He hadn't used it in over 800 days. Vivian knew what the pens were for and that all he ever used them for was to cross the days off. _She'd left Reggie at his house once, unable to find anyone else to mind him and completely out of choices. She'd been planning to write down a list of emergency numbers, and when she'd reached for the red pen, he'd stopped her, handed her an unassuming black alternative, and explained that the pen was special. Then he had shown her the calendar, and asked her if she really wanted to leave her son with him. It had not been desperation that made her say yes. _

She also knew he still went to meetings. But just to be absolutely sure, she would check the darkest corner of his highest shelf for the bottle of whiskey. She would find it untouched. When she realized that yesterday had not been crossed off, she would know that he had not been home.

Samantha would report then that she must have been close to the last to see him, and the time of his disappearance would be moved back accordingly. She would remember another case that had left him particularly upset and take Martin down to the spot by the bridge where he went to cry. _"Danny, hey how are you? Jack said you were pretty on edge." "I'm OK, Samantha. It was just weird. She had a knife and I didn't know what to do, so I kept talking." "You did the right thing Danny....was that a boat?" "Yeah." "Where are you?"_

She also knew that the last time he had been down there was after the incident with his brother. She knew because she had called him and heard a boat go past, just like the first time, when he had answered her simple question by unexpectedly telling her the whole story for the second time in one evening. When she saw that the garbage had not been cleared away, she would know he had not been there, and Martin would surreptitiously glance over the railing, just to be sure, and then feel guilty that he had even thought to think like that.

To cover it, Martin would remember that Danny was Catholic, and wonder if they should maybe try a church. He and Jack would go to the one closest to Danny's house. It was a stately old building, kept up by the donations of the wealthier parish with a sense of history. Danny's fellow parishioners, however, were themselves far from affluent. The current priests worked hard to reach the children in the community and keep them away from the gangs that ran the streets. Martin knew that this was where Danny went to pray. _ "Danny helped out where ever he could." the priest would tell them. "Everyone liked this quiet, gentle, man who went so far out of his way to be a good role model and a positive influence."_

He also knew that this was where Danny went to confess. The priest would tell him that Danny had not confessed this evening and ask if there was any way he could help. Jack would ask him to pray. When Martin stepped out from the front central doors of the basilica, once of the pigeons that roosted on the lintel would be startled and leave a present on his long black coat. Martin would say instinctively "That's disgusting!" and the pieces would fall into place in Jack's head.

Jack would take Vivian with him. He would explain on the way, as they drove through what was by now a fine fall New York afternoon. Once, when Danny had received a commendation from the Bureau for some case or other, Jack had called him into his office, poured two celebratory glasses of brandy, and shut the blinds when the younger agent threw up after the toast. Jack had apologized for almost ten minutes, hiding away the bottle and glasses, spilling so of the liquid on the papers in the drawer he hurriedly shoved it into, and Danny had begun to talk. _Jack did not interrupt as Danny outlined his painful descent into alcoholism and his excruciating climb out of it. He had hit rock bottom one April afternoon, all alone in his apartment when he realized that the only thing keeping him from being his father was that he didn't have anyone around him to abuse. He put the cap on the whiskey bottle, put it up in the darkest corner of the highest shelf of his apartment and bought a set of red and blue pens from the stationary shop down the street._

Jack knew where the accident had happened. He knew that the steel guard-rail Danny had sat on while the paramedic wrapped him in a blanket and told him he would be all right had been replaced last year when the road was repaired. He knew that Danny's life had changed for better, for worse and forever that day, and that, for a very long time, Danny had blamed himself for their deaths.

_"You stupid, ugly, worthless whore! You disgust me!" _

"Oooh, Fit and Thin girl. Must be high maintenance."

_"Shut up!" _

"Where's your compassion?"

_They both looked back at him, startled, and then little Danny Taylor's world exploded._

"Guess you'll be nicer to those fit and thin girls now."

As Sam turned her back on him and walked away, the biting comment sank in. He stood in the middle of the 'office', staring listlessly at his desk and wondering if this was really who he had become.

"Danny?" Vivian asked in the tone of a woman who has repeated herself at least three times.

"Yeah?"

"I was just saying good-night. You all right?"

"Yeah," he said still a little distracted. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

He grabbed up his coat and headed for the elevator. He would go to confess, to cry and to cross off another box on the calendar with a blue pen bought the day he discovered conviction. He had found himself that day, and for that very simple reason, he could never disappear.

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AN: OK, _I'm_ confused and I wrote it. That's what happens when I write on trains, I guess. But the flashbacks were fun!

This became a series by accident, and will be updated accordingly. If you want to write Jack, Martin or Vivian, drop me a line and we'll chat about it.


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